How to Multiply the Value of Every Product
or Service You Offer
by Bob Serling
Every product or service has more than one use. In fact, as you're about to see in this article, some products actually have thousands of different uses. And if you don't dig deep enough to discover what all the uses are for your product or service, you're leaving a lot of sales on the table.
Let's take a look at how you go about uncovering all the uses for any given product or service - and how you can leverage this to multiply your bottom line profits.
A quick quiz on a multi-use product
Here are just some of the ways a well-known product you probably have in your house or garage can be used. Take a look at the list below and then try to guess what this product is:
- Gets oil spots off concrete driveway
- Shines shower doors
- Removes crayon from carpets
- Cleans gunk from chain saws
- Loosens rusty nuts and screws
- Removes tomato stains from clothing
- Keeps bathroom mirrors from fogging
- Prevents snow from sticking to shovel
- Cleans black marks from shoes off of floors
- Keeps ax blades from rusting
Can you guess the name of this product? By the way, these are just 10 of the 2000 uses listed for this product on the manufacturer's web site!
The envelope please...
The name of this product is WD-40. If you'd like to see the entire list of all 2000 uses, go to www.wd40.com and click on "fan club". Sign up for the fan club and you'll get access to the entire list plus a lot of other cool information about WD-40.
Now, think about this: if WD-40 can come up with 2000 different ways to use their product, can't you come up with at least two or three more ways to use your product or service?
Sure you can. And once you do, you open up a wealth of opportunities for expanding your sales.
Growing your business by extending the way
customers use your product or service
While I admire what WD-40 has done to create customer excitement and show customers even more ways to use their product — stimulating even more sales — I believe they could take this much further. They could create targeted advertising for a variety of niche groups to stimulate even
more sales. More importantly, they could create different versions of the product to appeal to specific markets.
For the weekend handyman, WD-40 could have special packaging, perhaps even a different color scheme, to identify a garage version touting all the uses for the product on those weekend projects.
For clean-up projects around the house, they could create a scented version with its own dedicated packaging and direct their advertising towards housewives.
WD-40 could create a special version for cold-weather use and advertise heavily during the fall and winter to states that experience heavy snowfall. And internationally, they could have special ad campaigns running year round in every country that has a cold climate.
These are just a few of the ways WD-40 could be broken out into separate categories, and the brand extended and repositioned for maximum sales.
Another example of expanding the use of a product
Let's take a look at another product with fewer uses, but when properly positioned, its value can be increased significantly by using it to appeal to a number of separate markets. For this example, we'll use one of my own products — a toy I developed and licensed to a major toy manufacturer.
FireFoot is a sparking device that is attached to hand toys that are sold to kids who enjoy extreme sports. Currently, it's being used on miniature skateboards in two different sizes. When the tail of the toy skateboard is dragged over an abrasive surface, it shoots out a shower of sparks.
FireFoot is selling well at Toys R Us, WalMart, Target, Kaybee Toys, and many other large retailers. However, by applying a bit of analysis and identifying other uses for the product, its value can be increased substantially.
Expanding into other markets
An excellent way to extend the use of FireFoot would be to create a full-size version that can be used on real skateboards. Since there are over 16 million skateboarders in the U.S. alone, there's a large potential market.
We've had an industrial designer create a number of different versions of FireFoot for use on real skateboards and built and tested rough prototypes. It's generated excellent results in our test marketing. Using these results coupled with the excellent sales record of the toy version, we've scheduled meetings with a number of prominent skateboard manufacturers.
Our intent is to license a distinct version of the product, with a similar but different use, to a different industry. It would be sold through an entirely different set of distributors and
retailers. Based on market research, the projections are that we can double our royalties through this second license.
Expanding even further
Can this product's use be expanded even further, generating even more sales in yet another market? Of course it can. In fact, any product or service's use can be expanded a number of times in order to produce substantially more sales and profits.
Another simple, yet highly profitable way to expand FireFoot's use is to offer it as a premium to be included with other company's products. For example, the toy version would make an excellent premium for a fast food chain to tie into the X Games or other similar events.
The skateboard version could be offered as a premium to subscribers of extreme sports magazines or catalogs that specialize in clothing and equipment for extreme sports. I'm going to be suggesting these uses to the licensees of both versions. Whether or not they decide to expand each product's use in this way is up to them. But as you can see, the potential to reap even more sales is there for the taking.
How to expand the use and value of your own
products and services
Expanding the value of any product or service is actually quite easy. I've already given you examples of how WD-40 could create specialized versions of its product for a number of different markets. And you've seen three different uses — and markets — for my own product.
Now, let's take a look at how you can expand the use of your own product or service and substantially grow your sales.
There are two simple, highly effective methods. The first is to take a "strategic magnifying glass" to your product or service. Ask yourself:
- Who is the main target market for my product or service?
In what other ways could I package this to be used differently by my main market?
In what ways could I modify or add to this product or service to satisfy a different or more tightly defined use of it by my main target market?
- What are the secondary markets for my product or service?
How might they use my product or service differently than my main target market?
How can I package my product or service to satisfy the unique needs of each of these secondary markets?
The second way to expand the use of your product or service is to survey your customers. For a product, ask your customers if they use your product in other ways than it was intended to
be used. You might be pleasantly surprised to discover that your customers present you with entirely new opportunities for expanding your sales and profits.
For a service, ask your clients how you might expand or customize your service to better suit their needs. You'd be surprised how many ways clients can show you to better serve their needs. And in doing so, new versions of your services will be created that you can offer to your entire client base.
Extending the use of any product or service and growing your sales by doing so couldn't get much easier. Now that you've seen how to do it, why not invest an hour or two expanding the use of your own products and services? It's a great way to leverage your products and make a significant
impact on your bottom line.
